Notes: Five of eight seeds French…Tough starts for (1) Gasquet after a bye against either countryman Mathieu or Mahut, (8) Benneteau vs. Davydenko, and (2) Simon vs. his net-crushing countryman Llodra…Wildcards went to Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert, Mathieu and Simon…Pulling from the event were Benoît Paire (left patellar tendon) and Stan Wawrinka…Seeds Janowicz and Tursunov make their tournament debuts…Gasquet beat Paire in the all-French final last year…Returning champs in the field are Gasquet (2013, ’06), Monfils (2010), and Mathieu (2002)…Gasquet trying to match Pete Sampras (1992-93) as the only back-to-back winner in Montpellier.

Notes: Rough field with not a lot of talent outside the seeds…Wildcards went to Alexandr Dolgopolov, and Chile’s Christian Garin and Gonzalo Lama…Al Montanes pulled from the event…The tournament is the beginning of a four-tournament clay swing through Latin America…Seeds Almagro and G-Lo have losing career records at the event…Unseeded Horacio Zeballos is the defending champ, last year beating Rafael Nadal in the final…Returning champs in the field are Zeballos (2013) and Robredo (2011).

South of France Open in Montpellier would be fun.
Gasquet should defend the title there but one never knows how Monfils will go. Pierre-Hugues Herbert is a young gun to watch.

Other youngsters to watch are Carrena-Busta on the Latin Swing and fresh face Borna Coric in Zagreb.

Watch out for a Robredo and Fognini clash during the Latin Swing. The regulars on the Latin Swing – Dolgopolov, Almagro, Bellucci, Giraldo are good entertainment. Hopefully David Ferrer will turn up somewhere too. Stan Wawrinka is too cool for school after winning AO. He will be missed on the dirt – or maybe Wawrinka and Ferrer will turn up by the time Acapulco comes…

It does matter, that they told the crowd they are injured and then play on next week. That was a shame. It’s not about already leading 3-0. At the end, no one cared about that. In fact this was only the lastest in a long list of DC controversies in Germany. They should have found anyone who played. Doesn’t matter who. I mean the swiss played even though they were leading 3-0. It’s not about who plays, but that there are matches played at all.